Between the World and Me

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Description

Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the single best writer on the subject of race in the United States” (The New York Observer)

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER | NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER | PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST | NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST | NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Praise for Between the World and Me

“Powerful . . . a searing meditation on what it means to be black in America today.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Eloquent . . . in the tradition of James Baldwin with echoes of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man . . . an autobiography of the black body in America.”—The Boston Globe

Reviews

Very Good Short Read

4

By Boo88tb

Well written, very applicable to so many black folks today. It verbalized so many of the same feelings that I had been having since the beginning of the rash of killings of unarmed black men over the last few years. Highly recommended!

Powerful Message

5

By Kbodal

This is a great book with a powerful message and written from first hand experience and knowledge. It is an easy read and a discourse we should all have.

Powerful

5

By C1fan

Must read.

Honesty is Our Only Hope

5

By BrerBearPlace

We Americans have been in a downward spiral, a maelstrom of racism since Europeans landed here. It has all been a pitiful rationalization of white laziness that somehow justified the enslavement of others. We still have not come to terms with that enslavement and degradation in the aftermath that continues to this day. There is no polite way to discuss this. The only way to face and overcome this endemic social disease is to honestly face this reality and shine a painfully bright light on it and ALL of our responsibility for this, OUR reality. ‘Between the World and Me’ is a great step in the right direction- read it!

Must read

5

By Mcloving Edward

Must read. Will recommend this to any African American young adult

Amazing

5

By The Podson

Amazing book

Moving yet easy to read

5

By t master

what an incredible book for me, a rich white young male from an affluent part of Philadelphia, to read. I have seen the struggle and the ghettos and been inside of them, but this book put me inside those shoes. Absolute must read

"Between the World and Me"

4

By Bifbil

A 'stream of consciousness' that rushes onto each page as testimony of a black author growing up in the inner-city, USA.
I found the pace and reality experience of this Author to be an honest, angry, fearful, and ultimately a cleansing life-driven search for the very integrity of black lives in America; the quest for "the dream" and ultimately, abandoning the persuasion of the "dream" as false motivation whereas the journey of our lives unfolds with whatever quests & questions we choose to pursue.
I highly recommend this Author for a gripping and well articulated pursuit of questions wrapped in Black-skin pigmentation, the sole difference among all humans who inhabit planet Earth.

Angry man ranting....

1

By Ayayrun

This book is full of hate and racism. This author is not inspiring in his story as he only becomes more and more cynical as he ages. This book promotes fear and hate and it's disgusting how many people think this book should be required for a correct understand of America today.... it's not. One angry atheist man inspiring other people to fear the social movements of America

Between the World and Me

5

By FlyingFish22

A book, unlike any other I have read, and that will stay with me forever.